Finding Your Place
by Aello-ello
Summary: Tired after a Code Green, Bruce admits to his friends his frustration at only being useful to the Avengers in his angrier form, setting in motion a new mission to make Bruce Banner into a hero too. Set just after The Avengers. Bruce/Natasha
1. Beginning (Saturday)

**AN: Hi everyone! So this is a new story, and the fun bit about this one is that I'm going to be updating it every day this week, and each chapter will take place the day after the previous one, so if you want to you can follow along with what Bruce gets up to every day this week :)**

 **However the most important information is that this is SET AFTER 'THE AVENGERS' BUT WELL BEFORE 'AGE OF ULTRON' so the team are still really just getting used to each other and to living together in Avengers Tower (and the lullaby doesn't exist yet).**

 **I'm excited to do this thing and I hope you all can join me on this one!**

 **Also I don't own Marvel.**

* * *

"What are you worrying over, Banner? The Hulk's actions were a marvellous success!" Thor's booming voice echoed around the quinjet as the Avengers made their way back to their tower in New York.

"Yeah, Bruce, we needed ya, buddy!" Tony chimed in, while Bruce buried his face in his hands, pushing his fingers through the roots of his floppy hair.

"The boys are right," Natasha said quietly, laying a hand on Bruce's knee, "We needed the big guy out there today."

At her touch Bruce finally looked up. Surveying his teammates around him, nodding enthusiastically in agreement, and seeing Clint's hand making a thumbs up gesture over the top of the seat he was driving from, Bruce sighed.

"It's not…" he started to say, but soon trailing off.

"It's not what, Banner?" Steve asked kindly.

"Nah, it's selfish of me." Bruce mumbled at the floor.

"Bruce." Steve said, pausing until Bruce forced himself to look at him. "We all want to help you, sometimes everyone deserves to be a little bit selfish. What is it not?"

Bruce picked at the dirt under his fingernails, considering how he might answer. Eventually, completely focused on his hands, he told them.

"It's not right, I mean it can't be right, when the only good I'm able to do for this team is when I let the Other Guy smash everything up… I guess I just want Bruce to be useful for once."

Bruce stood up as he said this, and walked to stare out of one of the windows of the jet, his face burning in embarrassment at being forced to admit to feeling sorry for himself.

"Bruce, what're you on about?" Tony shouted, and Bruce could hear Steve muttering to him to stop talking, but he battered on regardless, "You build tech for the Avengers all the time in the lab."

"No. You build the tech Tony." Bruce replied, turning around. "Besides, it's not important, I'm just tired from the Code Green."

"No," said Steve, striding to stand right in front of Bruce, "if this is important to you then, as your teammates and as your friends, we'll help you."

"Steve's right." Natasha added.

"Of course!" Thor declared. "I shall teach you the ways of Asgardian warfare!"

"That oughta be a sight!" Clint snorted from the cockpit.

"Why are you laughing, Bird-Man? He shall make a fine warrior." Thor shot back indignantly.

"Nah, I don't know that I'm cut out for Thor level training…" Bruce began to protest.

"Nonsense, you will excel with me as your teacher!"

"Guess that's it settled then." Steve cut in before Bruce could say anything else. "Thor will give you a few training sessions, starting tomorrow, Thor?

"No, I don't know that…"

"Of course!" Thor boomed over Bruce's protests.

Bruce met Natasha's eyes across the quinjet, and she gave a look that would almost have been sympathetic if she hadn't been laughing quietly at his predicament at the same time. Slouching over to her, he let his body drop heavily onto the bench beside her as Thor began the familiar argument on the benefits of magical hammers over arrows. Just as Tony decided to join in, claiming the power of the Repulsor technology was stronger than both, Bruce turned to Natasha.

"I'm never going to survive training with Thor." He stated bluntly, causing Natasha to smirk a little.

"Well, you did ask for it." she shot back.

"I wanted to be useful, not to be embarrassed out of existence."

"Maybe it won't be as terrible as you think." she offered. "I'll be training tomorrow afternoon anyway, I'll come see how you got on once yous are done."

"You'll come to scrape what's left of me off the floor you mean."

She didn't reply, turning to watch the ongoing argument, although he doubted she was interested. They heard it at least once a week. Instead, Bruce turned to watch the clouds sail by outside his window, beginning to wonder if he had made a very bad mistake.

* * *

 **AN: See you all tomorrow to find out how it goes…**


	2. Strength (Sunday)

"Do not fret, Banner!" Thor declared as he swung open the glass door to Tony's gym and strode inside, "We will soon have you fighting fit!"

Bruce trudged behind his teammate, scuffing his feet along the floor as he entered and taking time to carefully close the door behind him.

"We shall begin with strength, for that is most important in battle, and then we shall move to basic combat skills. I find these Midgardian devices to be most useful in strengthening one's muscles." Thor boomed, striding towards where Tony kept the weights.

* * *

Bruce rolled onto the ground as Thor used one hand to lift away the weights he had been trying to get his friend to manage. Lying with his face pressed against the cool floor as Thor casually stepped over him, Bruce contemplated staying there forever.

"Now we shall learn the art of combat, first with a sword, one of the most noble of weapons."

There was a moment of silence, and Bruce slowly opened his eyes to see Thor standing over him, his arm outstretched to haul him to his feet. Sighing, he raised his arm, and had barely touched Thor's hand before he was lifted from the floor and set upright on the ground, his shoulder aching from the sudden strain.

"Here." Thor said, handing him a rough piece of wood cut into the vague shape of a sword. "On Asgard we teach the children to fight with wooden weapons so they cannot injure one another as they practice."

Thor demonstrated by waving the 'sword' in swinging and jabbing motions, all aimed at the bench Bruce had claimed for his belongings, and stopping just short of the water bottle he had borrowed from the kitchen that morning. Eventually Thor's swings got too close, and the bottle tottered on its base, before it fell completely, rolling along the bench on its side, off the edge, and landing on the gym floor with a quiet thud.

"Where'd you get the wood from?" Bruce asked, taking the heavy branch.

"I found a tree outside the door to the tower." he declared proudly.

"You cut the branches off the trees outside?" Bruce asked, his eyes wide with concern.

"I didn't cut the branches, they would not make a good sword, not even a practice one. I cut both of these from the trunk of the tree."

"You cut down a whole tree?" Bruce exclaimed.

"Of course! I think it must have been a sort of vermin tree to have grown in the middle of the pathway like that, so the Midgardians will likely be glad I have removed it."

Bruce opened and closed his mouth several times, but eventually he gave up and shook his head in disbelief.

"So the most important element is to ensure your posture is correct. Stand as I do, with your feet further apart to balance you."

Bruce did his best to copy, repositioning his feet several different ways before he was satisfied that it was as close to what Thor had done as possible.

"You must stand however you feel most balanced Banner, once you bear the heavy weight of armour it becomes difficult to remain upright, and so your stance is of great importance to maintain your balance. This is why our strength training holds such importance too, as you must be able to move your arms under the weight."  
"Why not just get better armour?" Bruce muttered under his breath.

"If it were not heavy it would not protect us." Thor replied, taking Bruce's remark as a genuine question. "Now. Let us begin."

* * *

Taking a deep breath, Bruce stared at the ceiling and forced the heavy weight upwards from his chest. His arms began to shake and he could hear only the rushing noise of the blood pumping in his ears, but he clenched his jaw and held on.

"Keeping on going even after Thor's left? You must be keen..." a feminine voice drifted into his ears over the sound of his frantic heartbeat. Carefully setting it down, Bruce slid downward, underneath the bar, and landed in a crumpled, sweaty heap at Natasha's feet.

"Tired?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Like you wouldn't believe." he replied, dragging the words as though he was barely awake. She laughed gently, and he hauled himself to his feet. Holding his aching arms stiffly by his sides, Bruce waddled his weary body towards the bench with his towel on it.

"I don't understand." Natasha observed, "What's the point in forcing yourself to lift weights when the other guy could lift ten times as much without thinking about it?"

"You really don't get it, do you?" Bruce accused, collapsing onto the bench and scrubbing the towel across his forehead. "This is about being _more_ than him. More than _that_."

After a moment's pause, Natasha quietly sat down beside him, reached down, and lifted Bruce's plastic water bottle from the floor beneath the bench.

"Didn't know you were such a supporter of Stark Industries." she said, turning the bottle so he could see the bright red lettering on the side.

"Only one I could find in the kitchen." he said, a small smile tugged at the edge of his mouth as she offered it to him.

"I do know that you want to be more than the other guy," she offered as he took the bottle, "but I thought this was about making Bruce Banner into someone who's useful in his own way, not about turning him into a less green Hulk?"

Bruce took a sip from the bottle as he contemplated her words.

"I knew this wasn't really my style." he conceded. "I'm never gonna be built like Thor anyway."

"Well, we weren't gonna tell you…" Natasha teased and Bruce chuckled.

"It was a stupid idea all along, I shouldn't have wasted Thor's time with this, not to mention that tree…"

"No, it wasn't." Natasha said firmly. "You just need to find something that does suit you. Why don't you see if Stark has something more your style?"

She tilted her head towards the water bottle and Bruce nodded slowly in response.

"I guess I could give it a go, see if Tony has anything I could use."

"Good." Natasha smiled, "We'll find you something to do yet, Doctor."

Bruce opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by Tony's voice blaring over the speaker system.

"Right guys, the NYPD are here, who's going round cutting down trees?"

* * *

 **AN: Hope everyone had a better weekend than Bruce! Come back tomorrow to see if Monday gets any better for him :)**


	3. Pulse (Monday)

"Look, I've got this really nice stuff I've been working on, I'll let you test it out, come on, it'll be fun, let's go." Tony rambled over Bruce's protests, one arm slung casually over his shoulder to stop him from running away, as he steered them both into the lower lab in the Avengers Tower, where the Iron Man suits were kept.

"Here, you can check this out first." Tony said, swiping his hand over the holograms above one of the workstations until a drawer slid open. From it he lifted a flat red and white disk about the length of Bruce's thumb in diameter, and flipped it in the air like a coin.

"Catch!" he declared, spinning the disc through the air towards Bruce, who flailed his arms a little before catching it in two hands.

"Are you sure this is the kinda thing you should be throwing around like that?" Bruce asked warily.

"You won't know til you try it out, will you?" Tony replied, smirking. "Set it flat on the palm of your hand, white side facing up."

Bruce did as instructed.

"Now what?"

"Now press the middle of the disc with your other thumb." Tony instructed, pride already colouring his tone.

As soon as Bruce's thumb touched the disc small bits of metal began to slide out from inside it, unfolding piece by piece, red and gold circling his hand, and moving along his fingers and his forearm. Suddenly the unfolding process stopped abruptly, the metal running out just before his fingernails.

"No, seriously?" Tony declared, jogging over to him and lifting his almost gloved hand to examine it. "I didn't think… Well, fair play I guess, hang on and I can fix this."

"What'd I do to it?" Bruce questioned frantically, and Tony grabbed a screwdriver from the table beside them and began taking the glove apart.

"Oh nothing, you just have bigger hands than, uh… the intended recipient. I need to make it a bit bigger, it'll only be a moment."

"Sorry." Bruce mumbled apologetically.

"What for?" Tony asked confused, his focus almost entirely on the machine before him.

"Could I do anything to help?"

Tony glanced up from his work to meet his eyes, and Bruce held his breath, worried he had offended him in some way.

"Okay." Tony decreed eventually. "You need to do what I say though."

"I will, don't worry." Bruce assured him, breathing a sigh of relief.

* * *

"Your idea for getting the tiles to slide so well is brilliant, I have to say, Bruce." Tony declared as he clapped his hand on Bruce's shoulder. "Don't be going getting a patent on that cause I want it for my suits."

"It's all yours." Bruce laughed.

"Now then." Tony said, folding the glove back into the disc once more. "Let's try this again."

He handed the disc to Bruce, who placed on the palm of his hand and pressed his thumb to it. At once, the coloured tiles slid out, gradually covering more and more of Bruce's hand until it was completely encased in the glove. Bruce looked to Tony, who was grinning back at him.

"It worked." Bruce muttered.

"Course it does, I built it." Tony declared, spinning towards his holograms again. "Now go stand on the circle over there and I'll get you some baddies to kill."

Wiggling his fingers in the glove and trying to imagine writing in it, Bruce did as he was told.

"Right, so. Some hologram baddies are gonna show up round you, stick your hand out like this to aim, and then flex your thumb to fire." Tony called over to him.

"Fire what?" Bruce asked warily.

"You'll see." Tony smirked. "JARVIS, run simulation."

In front of Bruce a monstrous creature appeared to dig through the floor and haul itself into the circle. It bared it's pointed teeth, its own ligaments tangled in its incisors, and narrowed its gaping black eyes. Bruce felt sick looking at it, the only indication that this horrible creature wasn't really there was the bleached white colour of its scaly, reptilian body. Outside the circle, Bruce could see Tony miming lifting the palm of his hand towards the creature, and so he mirrored the action, waiting only a few seconds to be certain it was aimed correctly before he curled his thumb in quickly towards his fingers. A pulse of energy was emitted from the palm of the glove that shot straight through the animal's neck, leaving an empty cylindrical space where part of its body had once been, and exposing a mess of tubes and flesh, all rendered in a ghostly white, that began to drip hologram blood onto the floor of the circle. Bruce worked to regulate his breathing, conscious of the Other Guy stirring in the back of his mind, longing to rip one of these awful things apart by hand.

"You good over there?" Tony asked, concern evident in his tone. "We're not gonna have a situation here, are we?"

"No…" Bruce mumbled uncertainly, his eyes slammed shut as he focused on slowing his heartbeat.

"No." he said more firmly, a moment of heavy breathing later, "I'm fine now."

"You sure?" Tony asked, "We don't have to keep going today…"

"I'm fine. Let's keep going." Bruce declared with a confidence he didn't feel.

"Alright, maybe no more monsters for a while… How bout some Hydra agents, pretend you're Cap."

As Tony said this, three ghostly armed men in SHIELD uniforms with white Hydra armbands ran through an invisible door and lined up opposite him, their hologram guns all aimed at him. The Other Guy rumbled in his mind but he shoved him back.

"You want me to shoot people with this thing?" Bruce demanded, turning to Tony.

"Yeah… isn't that what you wanted?" Tony replied, confused.

"But they don't stand a chance against this! It's inhumane!"

"They're just projections, they're not real, Bruce." He replied, speaking slowly and carefully as if he were explaining it to a child.

"No, but they would be eventually." Bruce declared, pressing the emergency release switch at the base of the glove, he walked past the Hydra agents and set the glove on one of the workbenches, the noise echoing around the silent lab. He looked at Tony, who was watching him, clearly confused, and with a wariness that told Bruce he was worried the Other Guy was going to make an appearance, then he walked on and left Tony alone in the lab with his simulation.

* * *

"I assume you won't be taking over as Iron Man then?" Natasha asked, sitting down beside Bruce on the bench. He refused to look at her, instead staring around him at the people of New York as they hurried through the secluded little park.

"How'd you know I was here?" He asked, watching a little boy on a bicycle try to do a figure of eight on the grass.

"JARVIS told me what direction you went in when you left, and once Stark told me what happened I figured you'd be hiding somewhere nearby."

"I'm not hiding." he muttered defensively, cringing as the boy lost his balance and toppled over onto the grass.

"So what do you call this?"

The boy was on his feet again, rubbing the damp grass off his trousers, and getting ready to try again.

"Reminding myself of the people we do this for." he offered quietly.

He was still watching the boy when he felt her cool fingers slide around his wrist. He quickly turned his head to look at her, and opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

"We do it for them, yes, but it doesn't need to be like Stark's way."

"Or your way?" Bruce asked before he could stop himself. She took a sharp breath and abruptly lifted her hand away from his wrist. "I'm sorry, Natasha, I didn't mean it like that."

"It's fine," she interrupted.

"No, Natasha, I shouldn't have said that."

"I think you should speak to Steve." She replied coolly, standing up, "He might have something you find more acceptable."

Bruce called after her as she walked off, but she didn't look back. He slumped back onto the bench, scrubbing his hands over his face and digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. When he looked up the boy was cycling in circles again, still trying to make it into a figure of eight.

* * *

 **AN: Things not getting much better for Bruce so far haha, I hope your Monday goes better than his! See you all tomorrow :)**


	4. Shield (Tuesday)

**So excited I get to post my favourite Avenger's chapter on my birthday :)**

* * *

"Doctor Banner." Steve greeted, looking up from the frying pan he was scrubbing as Bruce came into the kitchen. "How're you?"

Bruce didn't answer, instead opening the cupboards and rifling through them, unsure what he was looking for but determined to find something.

"Bruce?" Steve asked, setting the pan on the draining board and grabbing a towel. "Everything alright?"

Bruce continued his frenzied hunt until he felt Steve's strong hand on his arm, stopping him from opening more cupboards.

"Is there anything going on here that I could help with?"

* * *

"Hold your hands up a bit higher when you're not punching, your aim is to protect your face, cause that's going to slow you down the most if it gets injured."

Bruce did so, continuing to punch the bag Steve had set up for him, painfully aware that he lacked any of the grace or skill with which his teacher could do this.

"And don't worry about going so fast, a few well executed punches to the right places will do far more for you than lots that miss."

Bruce tried to take this on board as he continued punching, flicking his head slightly to stop his sweaty hair from dripping into his eyes.

"So…" Steve started, "What's going on with you and Romanoff?"

"What?" Bruce asked, stopping to turn to face his teacher, "Did she say something about me?"

"Keep going." Steve laughed, waiting for Bruce to resume before he continued. "She was down here yesterday, beating the daylights out of the bags, and out of me when I offered to spar against her." He lifted the hem of his shirt to show Bruce a splattering of dark bruises around his ribs. "She doesn't normally go for it like that, and let me tell you, it takes a lot to bruise me. I asked her if something was bothering her and she just said 'Bruce', wouldn't say any more about it. I was hoping you might have some answers for me?"

"I, uh… I said something I shouldn't have." Bruce answered, the sound of his hand hitting the bag getting louder as he punched it harder. "She was trying to help me out and I screwed it up."

"I'm sure you didn't mean it." Steve said consolingly.

"How can you be sure about that?" Bruce asked scathingly, "You barely know me."

"I know what guilt looks like, Doctor Banner." He replied calmly, "Especially when it's in the form of beating up a punch bag."

Bruce stopped abruptly, sweat running down his neck and forehead and he realised that he had been attacking the bag brutally, not with any skill, but with the recklessness of venting his frustration on an inanimate object. Exhausted, he bent forward, his hands resting on his knees as he gulped in air.

"I know how much you want to fit in, Bruce, but we see you as part of the team already, is it really worth putting yourself through all this?"

"I have to know…" Bruce paused to gulp in Oxygen. "I have to know that I can be more than the Other Guy."

"If this is what it takes for you to prove that to yourself, then okay. Why don't we have a go with the shield?"

"You're gonna let me try the shield?" Bruce asked in awe.

* * *

"Why don't you keep practicing there and I'll go and get us both some more water?" Steve said, heading towards the door.

"You're alright to leave me on my own with this?" Bruce asked, waving the heavy shield slightly.

Steve smirked. "It's not like you'll be able to break it."

With that he left, taking care to close the glass door behind him, and Bruce turned the shield over in his hands, admiring it, before slotting it onto his left arm. He adopted the crouched position he had been taught, legs wide for balance, and focused on the punching bag opposite him. Taking a deep breath, he turned to one side, dragged the shield off his arm as smoothly as he could, and threw it like a frisbee towards the bag. To his surprise it made impact, causing the bag to split slightly. Bruce's eyes widened at the damage, and quickly walked to one of the benches and carefully set the shield on it star side up. On hearing the door open behind him, he picked it up again to return it to its owner.

"The bag got a bit damaged there, sorry about that." Bruce said as he turned to give the shield back, only to find Natasha standing just inside the door, arms folded across her chest.

"So I saw." She replied in a neutral tone that panicked Bruce.

"You- you did?"

"I was watching from the other side of the glass. Rodgers sent me to fetch his water bottle for him."

"He took it with him when he left." Bruce replied confused.

"I suspected as much." she mused, sounding more resigned than annoyed.

Understanding the opportunity he had been presented with, Bruce took his chance.

"Look I really am sorry about what I said –"

"I don't want you to apologise." she interrupted. "You weren't wrong, there are less violent way of protecting people than the ones I'm trained in, and I'm working hard to get away from those. But I haven't managed it yet, so you're not wrong."

"Natasha, I - "

"Put the shield on." she said suddenly.

"What?" he asked, dazed by her rapid topic change.

"Put it on your arm again." she repeated.

Uncertain if she was serious or not, he tentatively slid his arm back into the leather straps on the back of the shield.

"Now say something rousing and American." she said, a sparkle glinting in her eyes.

"I don't know what he would say," he laughed nervously. "Something about the land of the free I guess, maybe a star spangled Banner?"

She laughed at his pun, her posture relaxing, and he did the same, realising that he was forgiven.

"You need to look more like you own it and less scared of it." she observed. Standing in front of him, she placed her hands on either side of the shield and positioned it where she felt Captain America would hold it. "Put your legs a little further apart and your other hand on your hip." Bruce felt ridiculous in such a pose, but having only recently earned her forgiveness, he did as he was told. Suddenly she was much closer and her hand was in his hair, pushing the unruly curls back off his forehead and flattening down the sides, and Bruce found there was nothing he could do but stare at her, completely captivated by her look of concentration as she fixed his hairstyle to something more patriotic. Apparently satisfied with her work, she looked into his eyes, her face only inches from his.

"Lift your chin up a little higher." she whispered, her breath warm on his face. "Like you're proud to be who you are."

Bruce did as instructed, an action which brought his lips even closer to hers, and he watched with a pounding heart as her gaze dropped slightly. Just as he was beginning to feel slightly dizzy, she stepped away, cold air rushing at him once she was gone.

"Now you look much more the part, wouldn't you say so, Cap?" she asked, turning to Steve as he entered again, a refilled bottle of water in each hand.

Bruce felt his face glowing red as he wondered how much Steve had seen through the glass door, and what he might now think had been going on.

"Of course, not sure that'll it'll make much difference to his throwing though." Steve replied casually, replacing the damaged punchbag.

"I'll leave yous to find out." she replied, leaving before either man could say another word.

Bruce watched her walk away through the door, before turning to find Steve watching him with a knowing expression, his arms crossed.

"I'm not even going to ask." he laughed, "but might I suggest if you want to get somewhere with her, you might need to get in Agent Barton's good books first."

* * *

 **AN: I couldn't resist a star spangled banner pun haha, thanks to everyone favouriting and following and reviewing - yous are all the best! See you tomorrow :)**


	5. Arrow (Wednesday)

"So you're trying to do what exactly?" Barton demanded, drawing the final arrow from his quiver, firing it down the range and into the centre of the target with practised ease.

"Well, like we were talking about on the quinjet last week, I don't want to just be useful to the team when I'm green." Bruce rambled, trailing behind the archer as he went to collect another quiver. "So I'm trying to find something I could do when I'm Bruce that might be helpful on missions."

"I thought Thor volunteered to do that with you…" Barton replied, drawing the first arrow of the new quiver and firing it away with the same precision.

"He did, but that didn't work out so great. I thought I might have a better chance at something that doesn't require super strength."

"Should I be insulted by that?" Clint asked, his eyes darting briefly to Bruce as he arched an eyebrow.

"No, no! I mean-" Bruce bumbled.

"Nah, I'm just messing with ya, I know what you mean." Clint waved him off easily as he fired another arrow. "So is what you're telling me that you want me to let you have a go at archery?"

"Yeah," Bruce answered, "if it's okay with you, that is."

"So this is what Nat was on about…" Clint mused to himself.

Bruce shifted on his feet as Clint fired another few arrows.

"What did she say about me?" Bruce eventually asked, examining his clasped hands.

"About you?" Clint chuckled, dropping the bow to his side and turning to face Bruce. "It wasn't anything about you."

He paused, eyes narrowing, and Bruce watched his own feet scuff the toes of his shoes back and forth as Clint examined him. After a beat the focus was gone, and Clint fired another arrow.

"She seemed fine after the mission on Saturday, didn't seem like anything was bothering her, not anything more than usual at least. Then I was away on some personal business for a few days and I barely heard a word from her. Just kept saying she was busy with some project she's working on. When I got back last night I asked her if there was anything I could do to help and she told me to be 'prepared to share my skills'." He laughed a little, turning to Bruce with a smirk. "Guess you're her new project."

Bruce felt his face burning, and he ducked his head, letting some of his curls fall forward onto his face in a desperate attempt to hide. Clint laughed in response.

"Well, I better give you this then." he declared, firing the last of the arrows and offering the bow to Bruce. "Word of advice for you; I know from experience it's usually best to do as she says."

He walked away to fetch another quiver, leaving Bruce to wonder how serious he was being. He turned the bow several times in his hand, trying to find an angle where the grip felt natural, and accidently hitting his arms and shoulders with it.

"Now it's a bit off at the minute," Clint said as he wandered back, this time bringing two quivers with him. "The frame took a bit of damage on the last mission and I haven't got round to sending it back to SHIELD to be fixed yet. So just aim a little to the left of the target."

"That's not difficult to fix, y'know." Bruce commented.

"Only if you have the right equipment." Clint replied, holding one of the quivers out to Bruce. "Put this beside you for now, no use making things too complicated too early."

Bruce fumbled, unsure how to hold both the bow and the quiver at the same time, while Barton watched with raised eyebrows. Deciding to hold the bow against his body with his elbow, Bruce took the quiver and carefully set it on the ground, wobbling it until it stood by itself. As he did this he felt the bow begin to slip, and so he bent sideways to try to hold it against him, all the while feeling Clint's stare burning into him. Eventually, he stood up straight again, bow in hand, trying desperately to broaden his shoulders, and to lift his chin like Natasha had shown him yesterday.

Clint grimaced.

"We do have the equipment, actually." Bruce offered. "The lab upstairs has all kinds of stuff, definitely anything you'd need to be able to fix this. I could fix it for you, if you want?"

"We'll see." Clint said dismissively. "Stand with your feet at a right angle to the target."

* * *

This time Bruce saw her coming. He knew she would come and check up on him, and he paid less attention to his crash course in archery than he should have because of it. He had glanced towards the glass door of the gym once again, this time to see Natasha, dressed casually in black leggings and a loose t-shirt, walking towards them. Feeling his heart beat speed up just at the sight of her, he turned back to the target, determined to get at least one good shot in while she was looking. He drew his arm back and released the arrow, but it flew wide, the only one from this quiver not to land somewhere on the target.

"Bad luck, buddy." Clint commented from behind him, as the door opened to let Natasha in.

"Not the best of teachers, are you, Clint?" she asked as she approached.

"Hey, he's landed every other one this round!" he retorted, laughing. "It's not my fault something distracted him…"

Bruce knew from his tone exactly what he was implying, and he quickly grabbed the final arrow and drew it back towards his chin, steadfastly ignoring the comment.

"Try like this." Natasha said, and suddenly she was pressed up against him from behind, her breath tickling the hairs on his neck, as she covered each of his hands with her own and used them to guide the bow upwards a little.

"There." she whispered, removing her hands. "Let go now."

Unable to think about the target, he trusted her completely, allowing the arrow to go wherever she had planned. When he looked up he saw that it was stuck firmly in the centre of the target. He turned around as she stepped back, and grinned at her in thanks.

Clint gave a low whistle.

"Well I'll take that as my cue to leave."

"Don't be like that." Natasha said to him as he gathered up his things.

"Nah, I think you've got this well under control, Nat." he laughed, heading to the door. "Don't forget we're watching that spy movie later, we had a deal."

"You know I hate those movies," she whined, "I can't believe they made another one!"

Clint laughed.

"Maybe Bruce could join us?" Clint stated as if it had just occurred to him, and Bruce found himself suddenly throw back into the conversation. "You up for it?"

"Probably not, I was gonna work in the lab just tonight, I'm losing a lot of research time what with all this training I'm suddenly doing."

"Fair enough," Clint replied casually, opening the door. "Sure hold on to the bow then when you're done. If you're gonna be in the lab anyway maybe you could knock it back into shape for me?"

"No problem." Bruce confirmed. "And thanks again for your help!" he called but the glass door had already swung closed.

"Have you found your calling yet, Doctor?" Natasha asked.

"I don't think so." he chuckled sadly. "Archery's good fun, but I'm never gonna be good enough at it to actually use it on a mission like Barton does. Besides, I don't think he'd like me stealing his thing like that."

"You're probably right." Natasha agreed.

"So that's it then." Bruce sighed, lifting the empty quiver and going to collect the arrows. "There's nothing else left to try. Unless I start trying to see what normal SHIELD agents do, but I don't think anyone there would trust me enough to let me near them."

"There's one person you haven't tried to learn from yet." Natasha commented, fetching the arrow he had shot miles away from the target.

"You mean?" he asked uncertainly.

She shrugged, then lifted an eyebrow in challenge.

"Are you offering to teach me to be the Black Widow?" he asked incredulously.

"Maybe not the be the Black Widow," she conceded, approaching him with the rogue arrow. "But a few combat moves maybe, might be something more suited to your style."

She took the quiver from him and slid the arrow into it.

"What do you think?" she asked, and for the first time Bruce spotted a slight hint of uncertainty beneath her calm, confident demeanour. He realised that, for some reason, this mattered to her.

"Sure, I guess. I mean I can't be worse than anything so far." he replied, and he saw some of the tension drain from her shoulders.

"So 8am tomorrow then?" she informed him, setting the quiver back with the others and leaving before he could reply.

* * *

 **AN: My first time writing Clint, but it was great fun! Feel free to suggest which spy movies he's making Natasha watch haha**

 **See you tomorrow to see how Bruce gets on training with Natasha herself!**


	6. Widow (Thursday)

Bruce trudged into the communal kitchen of the Avengers Tower, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with one hand and carrying Clint's newly repaired bow in the other.

"G'morning, Doctor Banner." Steve chirped merrily from the stove, where he was making porridge.

"Hey, Steve." Bruce mumbled, dragging his feet towards Tony's high-tech coffee machine.

As he began making his coffee Clint appeared, dressed in his SHIELD uniform, his hair spiked to perfection.

"Hey, is that my bow?" he asked excitedly.

"Huh?" Bruce responded sluggishly. "Oh, yeah. Took a bit longer than I thought it would, but that should be it fixed now."

He moved his arm slightly to offer the bow in Clint's general direction, and he immediately bounded over to grab it from him, lifting it up to examine it.

"That's great! Thanks Bruce!" he declared, slapping a hand heavily on Bruce's shoulder, causing him to sway slightly on his feet. "How long'd this take you?"

"Most of the night." Bruce mumbled in reply, lifting his steaming coffee and collapsing into a chair.

"You going out in the field today?" Steve asked Clint, and soon the conversation faded away as Bruce savoured the first sips of his coffee.

"Doctor Banner? Bruce?"

Bruce looked up again to find that Clint and his bow were gone and Steve was staring at him, waiting for an answer.

"Sorry, I wasn't… what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Steve laughed, "I was just asking if you wanted some breakfast? I've always got enough to share."

"Oh. Um, sure." Bruce responded, getting up to search the cupboards.

"Stay where you are," Steve called, "I'll sort it. You look like you had a rough night?"

"And he's about to have an even rougher day." Natasha announced, striding into the kitchen and taking the orange juice out of the fridge.

Bruce accepted the bowl from Steve with a sigh and tilted his chair onto its back legs to reach the sugar on the counter.

"That's not good for- " Steve started before he could stop himself, but Bruce ignored his warning as he poured an unhealthy amount of sugar into the porridge.

"Let him have it, Cap." Natasha commented, "He's going to need all the energy he can get."

Steve poured himself a bowl and joined Bruce at the table.

"Don't go breaking our scientist, Romanoff." he warned playfully.

She met Bruce's eyes as Steve said this, her smirk merging into a genuine smile at the Captain's words.

"I wouldn't dream of it."

* * *

"You're not even trying!" Natasha laughed, easily dodging Bruce's sluggish punch.

"I'm just not cut out for this." Bruce wheezed, shoving a sweaty hand through his curly hair to push it back from his face.

"Hold your posture better." she commented as she gently kicked her right foot against each of his elbows in turn to force him to lift them higher. Bruce tried again to throw a punch at her, but this time she caught it with ease and used it to pull him closer to her.

"From this position I could twist your arm in either direction, causing you to fall forward and giving me the advantage, or I could use it as leverage to swing my legs around your neck and from there either choke you out or smash your skull in."

"Or you could do neither and let me win?" Bruce suggested hopefully.

"Or I could do this." she replied, sliding between his legs and using her weight to flip him forward so that he landed on his back on the soft mat.

"Owww." he whined. "And unfair - I'm never gonna be small enough to do that to you."

"How about we take a break for a minute?" she laughed.

A moment later something damp landed on Bruce's face, and he reluctantly hauled his hand off the floor to lift his towel from his face.

"Thanks." he laughed, and he sat up. He scrubbed the towel over his face and neck, and then let it hang over one shoulder so that he could use both hands to slide backwards along the floor until he could lean against the wall. Natasha stared disapprovingly, but he merely shrugged in response, and so she strode over and lowered herself to sit down beside him on the floor, close enough for her arm to be pressed against his.

They sat side by side in silence, Bruce tugging at the frayed ends of the towel and gradually unravelling a thread from it.

He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again, thinking over his words.

"I… I think it's really time we called this off. It's not going to work out." he said firmly but quietly, his gaze focused on his fingers as they ruined his towel.

"What's not worked out?" she asked feisty, "Trying to prove Bruce is important too?"

"Yeah."

"You still don't think there's a way Bruce can help the Avengers?" she demanded.

"Nothing we've tried has worked, Natasha. I should have known better than to waste everyone's time with this, I have to just face the facts, the only thing I'll ever be able to bring to the table is my angrier side."

"You really irritate me sometimes, y'know that?" she puffed, dropping her head back to land heavily against the wall behind her.

"How d'you mean? What'd I do?" Bruce fretted.

"When you offered to fix Clint's bow yesterday I thought you'd finally got it."

"Got what?" Bruce asked, turning his head to face her, watching her frustrated reactions.

"You have a place, Bruce!" she exclaimed, turning to look at him, and Bruce found that their faces were closer than he had realised. "You're right, Tony does make the tech, but he makes either what he needs or what he thinks is cool. What our team needs is someone to make the stuff that's actually helpful, to design kit that takes in our suggestions, and to put things back together for us without it all having to go through SHIELD. Know anyone who would have any idea how to do that, Doctor?"

Bruce felt his mind racing, struggling to put together everything she had said when she said it so quickly and so close to him.

"But why did you spent all week helping me if that's what you really think?" he wondered, running a hand over his stubble as he tried to comprehend her shift in opinion.

"Because I wanted you to realise it for yourself." she sighed, "I thought if you saw what some of us do on a normal day you might think of things you could help us by making. I didn't think you'd work your way through the whole team and still not get it!"

They sat in silence again after her explanation, Bruce frantically working to match up this version of Natasha with the woman who had been helping him all week. He was dimly aware that she had been tricking him the whole time, but he found the only thing that annoyed him about it was that he hadn't realised what she had been doing before now.

Eventually he broke the silence that had settled over them, asking in a quiet, timid voice, "You really think I could help the Avengers from the lab better than Tony does?"

She turned to him with a smile.

"Without a doubt."

Reluctantly Bruce felt a smile tugging at his own lips.

"Does this mean I can stop all this training now?"

* * *

 **AN: Only one chapter left! I'm really glad people are liking this story, and also massive thanks for the birthday messages! See you all tomorrow for the last chapter :)**


	7. Lab (Friday)

**AN: Here we go - the final chapter!**

* * *

A comfortable silence reigned in the lab, as Bruce alternated between examining designs on his computer and testing various materials from Tony's resources, while Natasha sat on a lab bench against the wall, reading a heavy paperback in Russian.

"Steve's coming." she stated just as Bruce was sliding his chair back to his computer, and within the moment the door of the lab opened, and a blond head poked through.

"Safe to come in?" he asked.

"I've still no idea how you do that!" Bruce laughed, and Natasha looked up from her book to meet his eyes across the room.

"Practice, Doctor." she shot back.

"Afternoon, Romanoff." Steve greeted politely, "Thought I asked you not to break our scientist?"

"Not breaking, Captain." she replied with false innocence. "Only observing."

Steve laughed like he didn't believe it, but turned back to Bruce.

"Tony said you wanted to see me?"

"Oh, yeah," Bruce exclaimed, lifting papers from the desk and opening various drawers.

"Bottom drawer on the left." Natasha called, her eyes already back on her book.

Bruce shot her an incredulous glance, but opened the drawer anyway, and chuckled a little as he lifted out a small tub of pink cream.

"Told you." Natasha called, but he ignored her.

"I made you this, Steve." Bruce explained, standing up and handing the pot to him. "It's a fast-acting bruise relief, should heal any bruises up completely on a normal person within the day, on a Super Soldier within the hour."

"That's fantastic, Bruce. Thank you." said Steve, opening the pot and lifting it to his nose.

"No problem." Bruce replied, returning to his desk.

"What're you working on?" he asked as he pocketed the cream.

"I'm trying to find the best replacement metal for Thor's armour. Something less heavy and impractical but with the same protection as his current armour."

"No more Vibranium lying around then?" Steve quipped.

"Afraid not." Bruce laughed.

"Well, I'll leave you to it, Doctor Banner, I'm glad to see you've found something to do. And if Romanoff's giving you any trouble and you want rid of her give me shout."

"Try that and you'll be needing another pot of that cream, Cap." she responded, lifting her head briefly from her novel to watch him raise his hands in mock surrender before striding out of the lab.

Once the door closed Bruce returned to his screen, aware in the background of the sound of Natasha closing her book, and the muted thud as she hopped off the bench. When he looked up again she was standing directly in front of the desk, a serious expression on her face. He saved his work and shut off the screen before he stood up, walking around the desk to stand beside her, closer than he would have dared a week ago.

"Have you?" she asked, looking up at him. "Have you found your thing to do?"

Bruce exaggerated pretending to think about the question, rubbing his hand over his chin as he pondered. She huffed out an annoyed laugh, pushing against his chest slightly with her hands, but when she stopped laughing her hands remained against his chest, latching onto the lapels of his lab coat.

"I have." Bruce said quietly and firmly, trying to ignore the feeling of her so close to him to be able to give her the answer she deserved. "Thanks to you."

"Don't mention it." she whispered, her head tilting closer to his. "You haven't offered to do anything to help me though…"

"I didn't know you needed anything?" Bruce managed to reply, choking slightly in surprise as her hands slid up from his chest to link behind his neck.

"One thing." she whispered, closing the gap between them.

* * *

 **AN: And there it ends, massive thanks to everyone who has been following this story all week, and particularly to the lovely people who favourited and reviewed! I've had a great time writing this story, mirroring a week in a character's life with a week in real time has been a fascinating challenge, and I hope you all had as much fun as I did!**


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